Abstract
Lipid droplets form the storage reservoirs for lipids in adipocytes, and their stable appearance suggests a static nature of lipid storage. A stable lipid store, however, may be maintained through the dynamic recycling of lipid cargo between the cytoplasmic compartment and the lipid droplet. In this study, we applied live-cell microscopy to follow intracellular transport steps of fluorescently labeled fatty acids in differentiated 3T3-L1 adipocytes. We demonstrate that intracellular lipids continuously exit and re-enter lipid droplets, and that individual lipid droplets exchange their content on a timescale of minutes. These data demonstrate a surprisingly high rate of intracellular lipid turnover in adipocytes and support the novel concept that lipid storage is achieved by dynamic recycling rather than static retention.
Original language | English (US) |
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Pages (from-to) | 1946-1950 |
Number of pages | 5 |
Journal | FEBS Letters |
Volume | 585 |
Issue number | 12 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - Jun 23 2011 |
Keywords
- Adipocyte
- FRAP
- Fatty acid
- Fluorescent microscopy
- Lipid droplet
- Obesity
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Biophysics
- Structural Biology
- Biochemistry
- Molecular Biology
- Genetics
- Cell Biology